Rouster has a Ph.D. in Composition and Rhetoric and has published a number of pieces in different composition journals and on ERIC. In the following essay, he discusses patriarchy in "Woman Hollering Creek. "

"Woman Hollering Creek" by Sandra Cisneros was published in Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories in 1991. This story deals with the pain and suffering of women in a patriarchal, or male dominated, society. Patriarchy, as defined by Bruce Kokopeli and George Lakey in More Power Than We Want, refers to "the systematic domination of women by men through unequal opportunities, rewards, punishments, and the internalization of unequal expectations through sex role differentiation."

Patriarchy is evident in a number of ways in the women's world of "Woman Hollering Creek." The women tend to have mundane low-paying jobs, like Trini, the laundromat attendant, or no jobs outside of the house, like Dolores and Cleofilas. The...